Tuesday, October 11, 2011

My post a short while ago about some new ExhibiTricks features has gotten a good response.

Here are two pending ideas for The Exhibit Doctor that I'd like to start to dig into (and also like to receive comments and input from ExhibiTricks readers!)

First off, Mary Jane Taylor from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is on the lookout for ways to collect and display information in "flip books" or notebooks. Here's part of her email:

"In twenty years as a museum professional, and longer as a visitor, I've never seen anyone come up with an attractive, cheap, durable and easy-to-use system of having a flip book of text or images available in an exhibit. Solutions range from the bulky and impossible to use (thick mountings for pages with heavy-duty grommets and rings) to ugly, disposable three-ring binders from Staples.

"Notebooks" of source material, photographs, and diagrams are a basic in all kinds of museums, so it seems like a problem that somebody should be able to solve!"

I've got some initial ideas that I've been gathering for Mary Jane, but if you've seen an elegant way to gather and display this type of exhibition information feel free to drop me an email or share your "exhibit flip book" ideas in the "Comments" section below.

The second idea in the Exhibit Doctor hopper was submitted by Mary Anna Murphy, and this is from her email:

"This isn't a very knotty problem, but I've run across it again and again in installing 2D works in a non-traditional gallery setting such as a mall, an office that worships its walls, or even the Russell Senate Office building rotunda. None of those places have walls that want nails or hangers. I'd be interested in seeing how other folks have managed to make their displays. Oh, and it always has to be low budget."

If you've got some ideas to share on Mary Ana's question, again drop me an email or share your comments below.

In both these current Exhibit Doctor cases, and in future ones as well, I'll be gathering information from all the sources and resources I can, and then I'll write up a full report (with images and references here feasible) to share (for free of course) here on ExhibiTricks and also on my website.

So if you can help out with this first set of queries please do! In the meantime, if you have other Exhibit Doctor questions or would like a crack at the ExhibiTricks SoapBox feel free to contact me about that too!

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